HISTORY

The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music. There is general agreement that it appears in the Southern United States, a region which would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts, through the meeting of various influences that fusion the African musical tradition with European instrumentation. 

The migration of many former their descendants to major urban centers like Memphis and north to New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other's music and even began to impulse each other's fashions.Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to both groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and African American musical styles such as jazz and swing which were taken up by white musicians, with the help of "cultural collision".

The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called "race music", and country music of the 1940s and 1950s. Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a rebranding of African American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.

INFLUENCES

TEEN AGERS
Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. Many early rock and roll songs dealt with issues of cars, school, dating, and clothing. The rock and roll songs described events and conflicts that most listeners could relate to from some point in their lives 

•  Several rock historians have claimed that rock and roll was one of the first music genres to define an age group. It gave teenagers a sense of belonging, even when they were alone. 
• Rock and roll is often identified with the emergence of teen culture among the first baby boomer generation, who had both greater relative affluence, leisure and who adopted rock and roll as part of a distinct sub-culture. 
• This involved not just music, absorbed via radio, record buying, jukeboxes and T.V. programmes like American Bandstand, but it also extended to film, clothes, hair, cars and motorbikes, and distinctive language. 

DRESSING

Women switched to trendy coats instead of the traditional shawls. One also saw the large use of feathers as a part of the 1950s' fashion. Long knee length coats, which had loose sleeves, caught on really well in the 1950s'  Flowers, stripes, spots and abstract shapes all became a part of dresses and skists. 

LIFE STYLE

It was an era of great prosperity for many people. The explosive economy, combined with the generous benefits the government doled out to returning veterans, made it possible for very young couples to marry while the husband was still in school. buy a house without any savings, have several babies right away, and continually ratchet up their standard of living, all on the income froma single salary. 

RACE

In the cross-over of African American "race music" to a growing white youth audience, the popularization of rock and roll involved both black performers reaching a white audience and white performers appropriating African American music.Rock and roll appeared at a time when racial tensions in the United States were entering a new phase.

INSTRUMENTS

-Electric guitar
-String bass or later bass guitar
-Drums 
-Optional piano 
-Saxophone(s),
 -Vocals 
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced  by guitar in the middle to late 1950s, The beat is essentially  for an accentuated backbeat.

 

ARTIST

ROCKABILLY

Rockabilly" usually refers to the type of rock and roll music which was played and recorded in the mid 1950s by white singers such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, Many other popular rock and roll singers of the time, such as Fats Domino and Little Richard, came out of the black rhythm and blues tradition, making the music attractive to white audiences, and are not usually classed as "rockabilly".

 DOO WOP

Doo wop was one of the most popular forms of 1950s rock and roll, with an emphasis on multi-part vocal harmonies and meaningless backing lyrics, which were usually supported with light instrumentation. Its origins were in African American vocal groups of the 1930s and 40s, like the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers.

DANCES

From its early-1950s beginning through the early 1960s, rock and roll music inspired new dances. Teenagers found the irregular rhythm of the backbeat especially suited to reviving the jitterbug dancing of the big-band era. "Sock hops", gym dances, and home basement dance parties became the rage (popular), and American teens watched Dick Clark's American Bandstand to keep up on the latest dance and fashion styles.

From the midle-1960s, as "rock and roll”, later dance genres followed, starting with the twist,  and leading up to funk, disco, house, techno, and hip hop.  During the development of the musical genre rock and roll, dances to go with the music were also created. From swing, which came into being around 1920, Lindy Hop emerged, the first partner dance ever to feature acrobatic elements.